South Carolina

A panel approved a proposed revision to the section on evolution in South Carolina's new state science standards, according to The State (July 29, 2014). If the revision is approved by the state board of education and the Education Oversight Committee, it will end the impasse over South Carolina's state science standards that began with the EOC's refusal in December 2013 to accept a standard covering evolution.

The South Carolina state board of education rejected the Education Oversight Committee's proposal to revise the state science standards to require students to "[c]onstruct scientific arguments that seem to support and scientific arguments that seem to discredit Darwinian natural selection" at its June 11, 2014, meeting, according to the Charleston Post and Courier (June 11, 2014).

The Columbian mammoth is now the official state fossil of South Carolina after Governor Nikki Haley signed House Bill 4482 into law on May 16, 2014 — and there was no mention of the Sixth Day of Creation.

The South Carolina Senate insisted on its version of House Bill 4482 — which refers to the Sixth Day of Creation — on a 28-13 vote on April 30, 2014, and so the bill proceeds to a conference committee.

The impasse in the dispute about the place of evolution in South Carolina's state science standards continues. "The S.C. Education Oversight Committee on Monday sent proposed language to the [state board of education] that would require biology students to construct scientific arguments that seem to support and seem to discredit Darwinism," reports the Charleston Post and Courier (April 28, 2014).

Just three days after the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee refused to approve a section of the new state science standards involving evolution, Senator Mike Fair (R-District 6), a member of the committee whose opposition was responsible for the refusal, is reportedly withdrawing his objection.

At its February 10, 2014, meeting, the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee approved a new set of science standards for South Carolina — with the exception of a clause involving the phrase "natural selection."